This map shows what white Europeans associate with race

“… Each country on the map is coloured according to the average score of test takers from that country. Redder countries show higher average bias, bluer countries show lower average bias, as the scale on the top of the map shows.Like a similar map which had been made for US states, our map shows variation in the extent of racial bias – but all European countries are racially biased when comparing blacks versus whites.

In every country in Europe, people are slower to associate blackness with positive words such as “good” or “nice” and faster to associate blackness with negative concepts such as “bad” or “evil”. But they are quicker to make the link between blackness and negative concepts in the Czech Republic or Lithuania than they are in Slovenia, the UK or Ireland.”

This was from last year, but El Pais re-published a related story this week because of Salvini’s rise in Italy; so I though it might be interesting to mention it here in case any of you missed the original.

Implicit bias is a fascinating thing because it’s not based on rational thinking. I, for example, have to make a conscious effort not to be guided by the biases I absorbed as a child. As you can see from the map, my parts of the world lean to the redder end of the scale. This obviously extends to the derivative Latin American post-colonial cultures.

Consider unthinking actions like locking your car doors when someone approaches, feeling for your wallet to make sure it’s still there – essentially how one instinctively assesses “risk”. When I was little to keep me from wandering off my mother used to tell me that Gypsies stole children, and so if I wandered off they’d take me and I’d end up living in an encampment as a gypsy child. This created a mental imprint. So even if the rational me knows it’s not true, when I see a gypsy I still make a negative association.

These associations extend into most aspects of being. In northeastern Brazil much of the culture is designed around reinforcing these biases. Straight hair is attractive whilst afro-textured hair is called duro (as in hard, difficult) A narrow nose is better than a wide one. A person who has fairer skin but frizzy hair or a wide nose was said to have a foot in the kitchen. In more explicit ways, it was said that blacks were hard workers as long as well supervised. This is why many kitchens in the old houses of Bahia had basculante windows near the ceiling, opened and closed with chains or ropes – so workers weren’t distracted by things like a view or fresh air.

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I was a little taken back when first living in Panama. The underlying theme of race is lighter skin is better. The cultural influence of European theme dominates tv shows, commercials, models, and newscasters was actually shocking to me. I expected a stronger Native presence but what I see is whites that speak Spanish. I was a tad disappointed that the darker skinned folks actually aspired to this as well.

The bias has been mapped out in such a way that no one can escape from it. In a sense it’s all consuming. If you think about it, even in religion, light is goodness and evil is darkness. White is clean, black is dirty.

And yet, oddly enough my favorite colour (for clothes at any rate) is black. My favorite footballer of all time is black ( John Barnes), my favorite musician (Hendrix) is black and my top 10 in this area includes mostly black musicians.

The mind is complicated – and there are many layers to all this. In Portuguese speaking cultures, for example, the black woman is very much accepted as part of the family in a “mammy” sort of role. Black men on the other hand are not.

All we have here is one side (asking whites about associations assigned to be indicative of positive and negative bias) being immediately used to try to suggest the disparity is caused by discrimination by whites. My point is that it is a fallacy to assume that unequal outcomes between two or more groups must be caused by discrimination and/or in this case bias. There are other possibilities, too. But nothing sells faster in the West than assigning white group guilt. Whatever happened to Buyer Beware?

Okay – let’s put outcomes aside. Do you not see a problem with the discrimination in and of itself? I’m quite confident I’d be fairly furious if I were, for example, stopped and searched on the street – as apparently happens to people of certain races regularly.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve heard things like that my entire life. In relation to gays, women and a number of other groups who suffer exclusion.
Why do gays need anti-discrimination policies based on their sexual orientation?

The answer is that when discrimination is based on variable X, it is precisely that X needs to be somehow protected. Saying that sexuality doesn’t matter, for example, when it’s THE factor that will allow a person to be ejected from a restaurant or even fired is incredibly dismissive and leaves people at the mercy of bigotry and exclusion.

You do not solve the problems of GroupThink by applying more GroupThink.

As we have both experienced life under Apartheid and witnessed what happens when the pendulum swings completely the other way in what has been labeled ”reverse racism” I’d be interested to know what you consider would be the most equitable method/ solution to redressing the vast inequalities and major hurt that such institutionalized racism/bigotry causes?

I can tell you right now, if I were one of those who had been subject to such sever discrimination or bigotry, irrespective for what, I would want redress and a lot of compensation. And right now. Of that you can bet your arse!

Affirmative action and its equivalent actions for marginalized groups will inevitably produce a backlash.
This is the price that has to be paid for the hurt brought on by massive discrimination.
Eventually we will work out all these kinks (excuse the pun) and one can hope we swill treat each other with respect ( where it is deserved of course)
Meantime … as they say in the movies.
Suck it up!

I don’t know, Ark, but arguing that is a good idea to visit the sins of the father to the third and fourth generations sounds eerily familiar to me and raises a red flag. Is this really a solution? Is it just?

The best redress I can imagine – told to me countless times and in so many ways – comes every November 11th here in Canada and is enunciated from coast to coast to coast: never again. Lest we forget, never again. This is a recurring and cohesive yet evolving tradition. It is a statement of common value and a demonstration of unity… from a very disparate population. You simply wouldn’t believe the diversity operating side by side every day everywhere in peace, order, and (relatively) good government!

Let me explain what this Lest We Forget means because it’s not obvious.

It’s not war that is the problem: Canada goes to war when allies call and common cause is found. It’s not taking up arms that is the problem; Canada has always produced very large volunteer armies yet the public outpouring of a debt owed is truly remarkable to behold: thousands upon thousands upon thousands of stark red and black poppies left at every cenotaph every year regardless of weather. It’s not serving in uniform that is the problem; thousands of people today line the highway when a soldier’s body is repatriated. It’s not being killed that’s the problem: hundreds of thousands will line the streets when a soldier is murdered by extremists. The problem – the ongoing problem – is to not forget what caused so many to have to take up arms.

This is the crux: we take up arms to defend the common values that unite each and every one of us into an improbably whole called Canada. Without those common values, there is no united country populated by vastly different peoples with different histories, cultures, languages, religions, dress, music, cuisine, race, gender, you name it. The common value that empowers tolerance and respect, demonstrated by celebrations of diversity, is that each person is equal under the law, people who share exactly the same legal rights, legal freedoms, legal responsibilities. These are the common values represented by the uniform that then represents each and every one of us. That soldier is me. That solider is you. These shared values are the pillars upon which the country stands or falls: tolerance and respect must stand or fall <ibecause of shared common values amidst tremendous diversity. And, rest assured, it’s a very bloody evolution filled with injustices, to get to this point with unbelievable discrimination and intolerance having to be dismantled brick by brick by brick.

How do such atrocities arise? How does an apartheid system arise and how do we dismantle it?

Perhaps it was just coincidence that in same year I was spat upon by a white elderly woman for sitting on the park of a bench labeled ‘Coloureds Only’ in Durban South Africa, I was offered an ice cream by a nice elderly German Lady in the hot parking lot next to the infamous iron sign where gates once stood saying Arbeit macht frei. Both are excellent examples of man’s inhumanity to man. A month later, the men in dark coats assigned to watch us looked embarrassed when we went into Lenin’s tomb in red Square and embarrassed when a Russian engineering student was very excited to draw blueprints of our potato peeler. Even as a child I recognized what drove each to these terrible systems of injustice and discrimination: people chose to treat others either as the individuals they are or a representative of some hostile tribal group. These atrocities and the loss of freedom that accompany them are the result of group thinking taken to its logical conclusion. Us and Them. It doesn’t build tolerance and respect; it annihilates it.

This is what we must never forget: turning real people, real individuals, into one of Them, people with different fundamental values,. is wrong. That is what produces injustice. The solution, therefore, is to always turn Them into Us, see the rights and freedoms and autonomy I demand for myself be reflected in how I treat you the individual. And that action multiplied throughout a vast population full of diversity is what then extends into systems and removes the old and replaces it with the new. Brick by brick. Assigning individuals to be members of groups that is one of Them is a guaranteed method of forgetting our shared value as individual humans. So that’s why the November 11th tradition is so important: every person who values justice and liberty must be willing to do their part OR we will don the uniform to defend these essential uniting values.

And that’s why this movement today to shuffle individuals and populations into hierarchical groupings in the name of justice is a move back into tribalism, and move back into division and competition and violence, a move back into destructive and dehumanizing systems like apartheid and genocide. It is exactly wrong at every turn and fails to learn from the worst expressions of our collective past. It is a guaranteed path to injustice and intolerance.

I know this sounds too philosophical to be of practical use… until you see it in action, feel it in action. That’s why it’s no surprise that Canada is having its problems with Saudi Arabia’s government today and why Canada will not, cannot, back down. The government of Canada is expected to reflect Canadian values on the world stage and every politician here has seen what happens to governments that fail to stand up and act on these values: they are destroyed at the polls. I don’t mean defeated; I mean taken down to almost zero support right across this huge country. Canadians take this shit very seriously.

Those who stand and act against this value of shared rights and freedoms have been fooled because their basic biology tells them its wrong in that it does not align with our innate sense of reciprocity and fairness in our social interactions with real people. And, like religion, believing in group hierarchies and who owes what to whom based on some historical tally is a pernicious ideology that fools so many people into believing groups are the same as the individuals who have been assigned to constitute them. That’s an example of us forgetting what really matters: you… because you’re me no matter what other differences you may represent.

Who’s visiting the sins?
We afe redressing a situation that should not have happened in the first place. But it did, and thus we now have to face the problems created by others and sort it out as fast as possible.
Your view doesn’t address the issues NOW.
It doesn’t offer any sort of immediate payback for those marginalized or prevent people from continuing to behave in the same manner – legal restraints/prosecution not withstanding.

The situation in Canada would never have worked over here and you know this for a fact, not with the deep rooted racism.
To suggest otherwise is more than naive and thus to use Canada as a comparison is unfair.

Also, you have to instill the feeling of unity first and that is not going to happen unless those marginalized are allowed to be part of that unity and sometimes this requires laws to be put in place that accelerate this.
It all very well patting each other on the back and asking ”All friends now, right?”
it is a process that has to be worked through.
But for those who still harbour ill feelings well … as Monty Python once remarked: ”Tough titty for you fish face.”

Well, follow the logic. Redress means compensation, figuring out who gets what and from whom. How much? In what form? For how long? Is there a cut off point? Do the Scots receive money from the English who receive money from the Danes who receive money from the northern Germans who receive money from the Italians who receive money from the Chinese? I mean, seriously, redress through reparations is hardly justice.

All I’m saying is that the only path forward that produces voluntary and popular peace, order, and good governance tolerant of diversity are fundamental Western values in law that make supreme individual autonomy. Enforce them.

Using the law to promote group identity – no matter how well intentioned the specific might be – is the way back into tribalism, intolerance, chaos, and reciprocal violence because one is actually implementing privilege based on group identity. That divides people by definition. It’s just foolishness writ large.

The Windrush scandal in Britain was this year. So the idea we’re talking about an isolated incident a few hundred years ago is facile.
Your proposition requires the enforcement of equal rights. That includes equal opportunities.

I am not disagreeing with this point.
But I do object a little that you are going from the sublime to the ridiculous and I doubt most people would expect such extremes in any case.
”Yeah, you better damn well give us back Manhattan, you bunch of frakking crooks!”

But simply saying ”Yippee, democracy we can all be best buds” is not going to stop Mr Klu Klux Klan or Mr. Extreme ”I hate faggots” from continuing to discriminate, if only tacitly, and thus, leaving an entire disenfranchised culture to its own devices and expecting them to simply ”catch up” is simply callous.

Group identity is always there. and many people want to be part of a group and will fight tooth and nail to remain.

On the other hand, who could not think Manchester united supporters are nothing but ignorant cave dwellers?

If one has never been the subject of discrimination then it is simply far too easy to wield The Kiss and Make Up magic wand and expect everyone to be happy little sunbeams, no matter how reasonable the proposal might seem.

Sometimes the ”other side” has to be allowed to do its ”thing” and ”we” simply have to bite the bullet.

I agree 100%. The social dynamic Tildeb is proposing is essentially a form of social Darwinism, law of the jungle, first come/first serve. That’s not a level playing field because , especially when advantageous positions are engineered into the system.

Sublime to the ridiculous? NATO, NORAD, UN Peacekeeping, Irish peace accord, Iraq’s Sunnis-Shia-Kurds power sharing arrangement? Are these results pie-in-the-sky? Dismantling apartheid? Is this a ridiculous undertaking? These are Canadian values in action. And it works.

Canadian foreign policy is expert at working within diversity to produce unity without demoting the importance of respecting very real differences. That’s how lasting peace accords have to work. Have to.

Pointing at differences in group outcomes and crying ‘There’s discrimination!’ is a guaranteed way of undermining tolerance and respect for diversity, undermining peace, undermining fairness. Using disparity between groups in whatever outcomes you want to measure is no way to eliminate discrimination but a way to maintain it, a way to promote it, a way to embed it in law. If you wish to address discrimination, then you must have a common goal and common ground that is equally fair to all.

Equity in outcome is not fair. This is where today’s SJW’s go so badly astray. They honestly believe equity in outcome by group identity addresses and corrects historical discrimination.

Sorry. That’s wrong. Equity in outcomes attacks diversity. That won’t work because there will always be differences in outcomes because the individuals who constitute any group are diverse. In all kinds of ways. And we have compelling historical evidence that such social engineering to impose equity fails to deliver peace, order, and good governance. It produces totalitarian states where the individual is remade into a cog of the state. No differences between cogs (although there will always be some cogs that are more equal than others, to paraphrase Orwell). That’s what comes from championing equity of outcomes. Read 1984.

Equality in law for every individual is the value that works to allow diversity to thrive. That’s why representatives of groups who wish to establish privilege target equality in law first. That’s the lynch pin that denies legal discrimination. And it is under attack relentlessly. That is what must be guarded at all costs because that is the rock upon which individual diversity stands or falls. You can be as different as you want as long as you offer the same to everyone else AND the exercise of your differences does not infringe on the rights of anyone else wishing to exercise their differences.

This is not some pie-in-the-sky notion but the basis for addressing real world solutions to long standing infringements on the rights of others. And it’s one of the very few solutions that does work. That’s why it’s important.

Eliminating discrimination is not an event but a process, a process that requires certain building blocks, primary among them a legal undertaking first that elevates the individual to be supreme, This has to be followed up by its uniform enforcement. This requires diligence and maintenance if the process is to be peaceful and long lasting. The legal undertaking must start by create a legal common value important for each and every citizen to selfishly uphold.

Look, discrimination does exist. It’s inevitable but can be controlled. What I’m saying is that reducing it between people, dismantling it from systems and institutions, requires something more than creating new victims. What I’m saying is that assigning discrimination to be the cause of disparity between groups (very often twinned to the belief that disparity indicates discrimination) is an assumption that is dead wrong. Disparity indicates differences. Differences are fundamental to diversity. Seeking equity in law to address discrimination attacks equality in law and produces legal discrimination based on group identity.

“assigning discrimination to be the cause of disparity between groups (very often twinned to the belief that disparity indicates discrimination) is an assumption that is dead wrong.”

That’s a spectacularly narrow reading. I pointed you to cases with verifiable evidence where discrimination led to less acceptance of women at medical school. Where people with Maghrebi names don’t get to even look at rental apartments. I can also point you to a studies where French men with the same cv as French women get more responses from employers and so forth.
The reason the Canadian model worked in Canada is there was the pre-condition that there was general agreement discrimination is wrong. There’s wide opposition to that as a pre-condition in most of the world. Which is why counter-measures have been adopted.

“The reason the Canadian model worked in Canada is there was the pre-condition that there was general agreement discrimination is wrong.”

No. That’s myth-making and exactly opposite to the truth.

Canada emerged from exactly what you claim is wide opposition to that. Every typical discrimination has been part of our historical roots. That’s why ’emerged from’ is key. It is from widespread discrimination that common value has now been implemented and this is what Canada exports to the world: the means by which discrimination can be overcome because our bloody and very discriminatory history has emerged into today’s peace, order, and good governance. It is the ‘how’ that I’m trying to articulate, the very practical order by which discrimination can be effectively addressed and corrections can be implemented while, at the same time, diversity can be celebrated by all.

If reducing discrimination is the goal, then empowering group identity in place of individual autonomyin law is exactly the wrong way to achieve this desired result.

Canada is founded on importing all kinds of ‘social oppression’ from Europe in the attitudes and behaviours and practices of the immigrants themselves. Add the First Nations component and ancient treaties into the mix as well as raw geography and competing economic concerns. Now here’s the thing: you try creating peaceful and prosperous communities populated by various percentages of English, French, Catholic, Protestant, German, Jewish, Basque, Spanish, Portuguese, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, evangelical, daoist, Sikh, Italian, Somalian, Ethiopian, Tamil, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese… together with nearly 600 culturally distinct indigenous tribes, add a mixture of Marxist, Socialist, Liberal, Libertarian, Fascist, and Conservative ideologies into the political arena and tell me about how trying to rank group rights and group identities into a hierarchy for legal status reduces rather than expands and institutionalizes ‘social oppression’ in actual communities.

And yet, this is the reality of Canada.

Don’t you think the model has something to offer all these ‘homelands’ that continue to experience ongoing, disruptive, and violent ‘social oppression’ and active legal discrimination against minorities and majorities? Or is the model still too pie-in-the-sky… in spite of real world evidence to the contrary when applied to, say, The Troubles and results in the longest peace accord in Irish history, that brings Kurds and Shias and Sunnis to the same governing table? Don’t you think the Canadian model that has emerged from all these inherent problems as well as institutionalized discrimination can be useful informing today’s social ideology?

I think Canada’s history is very unique – and that a very particular set of circumstances made for what exists today.
Meanwhile the Catholic church still has enough power in Argentina to stop senators passing abortion legislation that’s supported by not just the majority of citizens, but also the majority of congress members and even the president.
I think the Canadian model only exists in Canada for the same reason the Scandinavian model only exists in Scandinavia. The forces that oppose equality of rights are strong enough to stop equivalents of the Canadian Human Rights Act ever becoming law. Discord and fear is what keeps whole classes of politicians relevant and in power.

I can tell you that just 20 years ago, so long after apartheid in SA ended, there was huge uproar in Brazil because a white man was going to kiss a black woman (Zezé Motta) on national television. So the idea of a level playing field through equality laws alone doesn’t really come close to addressing any of that.

Of course not, but it has to start somewhere.
Once upon a time everyone smoked. It was the norm. Now, not so much. Maybe in 50 years time no one will smoke?
As Warren Beatty once remarked:
”The best way to get rid of racism is for everyone to fuck everyone else until we are all brown.”
Or something along those lines.

Reblogged this on The Secular Jurist and commented:
The geography of this map is intriguing and warrants further examination. More racially biased countries are in the east and south of Europe with the Balkans standing out as a regional exception. That is somewhat surprising considering the ethnic tensions which have plagued the Balkans for centuries. Regarding the east-south bias, is it attributable to lower economic and educational conditions than the west-north; or, is it attributable to cultural differences?

Indeed, there are some interesting questions relating to that map. In Southern Europe (as you already know) we have a well established sociocultural pattern of Catholic authoritarianism; Salazar, Franco, Mussolini. Deeply entrenched patriarchy. All of this together could be interpreted simply as male reproductive strategy, and part of that strategy is keeping out anything “foreign”.

There was still a ‘White Australia’ policy when we first arrived, so my vaguely ‘asian’ eyes caused me to be bullied in the schoolyard at age 5-6. That left me with a strong bias /towards/ Asians. I guess it was a kind of ‘FU’ reaction.

I’d hate to think I was racist, and yet…seeing women in hijabs and burkhas still makes me angry. Is there such a thing as feminine racism? I’ve read enough about Islam and Muslim women to know that for most, wearing the hijab etc is a personal choice. So my head knows I shouldn’t be angry. My heart though…I guess I see it as a backward step in the faltering march towards true equality. 😦

@Tildeb You’re right, racism is not restricted to white males. Japan is possibly the most racist country on earth, and every country has its own version of ‘the Outsider’ or ‘the Other’. The point, though, is that in those European countries, the balance of /power/ is in the hands of white, predominantly old, males [except for Angela Merkel]. No discussion about race can overlook the direction from which power comes.

That’s the bullshit ctrl Left ideology speaking. Power imbalances and assuming disparity from that because of discrimination. Is that really true?

Well, it may be autism speaking here, but I’m actually very concerned with what’s true.

Look, here’s the thing: ask yourself why does diversity matter? In a uniculture, there’s no appreciable diversity, no reason to really think much about differences in culture. I’ll bet we can find all kinds of agreement about how diversity enriches populations and that it’s a Good Thing. All kinds of value added as well as stresses and various leanings towards bigotry. But then ask yourself about the value of different cultures and how that informs diversity. Now (to borrow this thought from a Big Brained person), let’s get this point straight: what is ‘it’ when we’re talking about diversity? Well, if culture matters enormously, and cultures differ from one another, then differences between cultures matter enormously. Isn’t that what diversity means?

So, is it ‘discrimination’ to find that, say, Caribbean blacks earn slightly more than whites in the US? The mantra we are told to assume is that power causes imbalances that create ‘victims’ and so the reason why we should implement racial profiling of students is to empower African Americans to gain more access. Sounds good, eh? Who cares that the model fails to explain why Caribbean blacks earn more than those other ‘dark skinned’ victims? Are we to assume they have ‘discriminated’ against African Americans? And what about the racial bias actually exercised by well-meaning Leftists who think holding Asians to a much higher SAT score is somehow addressing institutionalized racial discrimination?!

You see the problem? It lies with the assumption that there really, really, really is disparity because of ongoing racial discrimination. But what about those who come from cultures that do not share, say, a high degree of value on academic achievement? How on earth is that the fault of those who do and, more importantly, how does applying racial policies on behalf of ‘victims’ reduce racial discrimination in practice?

It ludicrous. But this IS the ctrl Left ideology in practice and it is ludicrous when it is used as a basis for enacting public policies like addressing racial bias by endorsing racial public policies.

You seem to be stuck in a thought pattern that doesn’t quite make sense.
Nearly 20 years ago when I finished school I was offered a job at a very important and well known company. A major player in the art world. With the offer there was a “warning” that I would be expected to keep my sexual orientation a private matter. That sort of thing actively pushed, for much of history, gay men into the shadows. The ones who were obviously gay were relegated a handful of professions which weren’t dominated by male heterosexual standards. That was very much still the case in my childhood. Openly gay men were – in order of the social class they were born to: hairdressers, florists, shop owners, members of the art world or professors. There was also a pocket in the field of entertainment. Some were very successful in those fields. The argument you seem to be making is that because that sliver of success exists, the status quo should be maintained and nothing needs to be done to stop discrimination in other professions.

Adding discriminatory polices to reduce discriminatory polices seems to me to be rather counterproductive. I would even go so far as to call it ludicrous. Bringing up examples of discrimination as if this somehow addresses the ludicrous and makes it seem reasonably coherent is like the Rain Dancer pointing at examples of water as if these examples make the rain dancing magic reasonably coherent.

What I’m criticizing specifically is this idea – this fundamental and core belief that informs the basis of today’s illiberal liberals and the Marxist ideology being furthered – is that unequal outcomes between two or more groups is caused by discrimination. This is an assumption that is wrong, that supporters of diversity should know is wrong – flat out idiocy – a fallacy in action, a self-defeating ideology that only destroys and never, ever builds solutions to real problems faced by real people in real life.

As I said before, you’re fixated on a very narrow area and so you can’t see the forest for the trees.
I’m bringing up discrimination so we can discuss how to bring about non-discrimination. What do you suggest is the best path?

To understand what’s true first, and then base public policies on the most meritorious approach. How racist, eh?

The disparity assumption – to indicate a power imbalance that causes discrimination – is a fallacy. That’s why I referenced something that’s true, that French Americans really do make $.79 for ever $1.00 Russian Americans make, to show you that the assumption to demand redress from the selected target is not just illiberal but goes against the very fabric of due process, against the need to produce compelling evidence to link a selected cause with selected effects.

The reasoning is identical. But it’s ludicrous when put into public policy nevertheless… in the name of, well who really cares as long as it sounds good. Let’s call it ‘restorative justice’. Doesn’t that sound great? So very liberal-ish sounding. Who’s against restorative justice? The heathen! Shut up and go away, those foes of justice!

You can’t just skip this evidence link requirement in the pursuit of ‘justice’ without completely abandoning the core values that allow justice to occur. This is why the ideology of painting disparity to be caused by oppressors on the oppressed is not only ethically rotten to the core but anti-truth and very much anti-liberal. It’s like the worst kind of religion in the sense that the believers in the assumption hold it as a matter of faith immune from evidence by people who will not tolerate correction, will cast aside what’s true for what they believe to be true, who raise their handy dandy terms of the liberal enlightenment thinkers and pervert these values by inversion, to be the opposite of what they really mean, by those who see no problem pretending it’s reasonable that discrimination is best addressed by intentionally discriminating, that free speech is best protected by implementing hate laws to stop people from speaking freely, to censor and disinvite and deplatform people who find issue with the assumption, or, if these moves fail to achieve the silence they demand of the ideology they feel they morally must uphold against enemies foreign and domestic, they feel entitled to shout down and drown out and attack and burn and use violence against those who dare say what’s being said, to go after people’s livelihoods and get them fired, to advocate for the removal of these people from the public domain by character assassination, to use every tool of vilification available at their disposal to socially and professionally try to have them condemned, people who gleefully will justify those who do the same to anyone who not just dares speak truth to power but go after anyone who thinks they should even be heard. These are reprehensible, deplorable tactics used by those who pretend to champion ‘victims’ and the ‘oppressed’ by making victims and doing their damnedest to oppress.

It’s the same broken thinking, the same charade, based on the same use of unassailable assumptions that any faith-based movement requires: that the assumption is above reproach and certain in accuracy… no matter what reality has to say in the matter.

Again you’re focusing on a single aspect – which in turn means you’re not seeing the problem as a whole.
Non-discrimination is hardly a question of merit alone. Are you seriously implying that’s the case?
Merit of being stopped and searched by police? Merit of having to hide one’s sexual orientation? Merit of not getting to rent an apartment because of ethnicity? Merit of being denied a place in medical school because of gender?
By looking at just one angle you’re failing to see these are all serious problems people confront every single day.

The Rain Dancer says the critic is not looking at the bigger picture, that doubting the narrative and asking for evidence between the selected effects and the supposed cause is too narrow. Look at this puddle, RD says! Look at this creek! See that river over there? And clouds. You are denying clouds, refusing to understand the nuances of humidity and temperature.

Your criticism isn’t based on evidence.
And there lies the problem. Your narrative presumes discrimination is a myth – yet all the evidence points in the opposite direction. All the evidence points to certain groups having advantages in a systematic way.
When large groups of people are barred from education and marginalised in employment, as has been the case for women, certain racial groups and LGBT people – this creates a dynamic of 2nd class citizenship.
If your theory was plausible, you’d be able to prove it quite easily with verifiable evidence. All you have to do is demonstrate how the people who control the rules of society are there by merit alone. You can start by explaining the case of the Tokyo Medical School:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/08/tokyo-medical-school-admits-changing-results-to-exclude-women

No, it doesn’t. Discrimination is very real. Institutional racism is very real. I lived in apartheid South Africa. I’ve been to Auschwitz. These are very real manifestations of what happens when we grant meaning to group identity, when we get the order wrong about what describes whom: the group identifies the individual or the individual describes the group.

“All the evidence points to certain groups having advantages in a systematic way.”

Yes, and that is never, ever going to change when you empower GroupThink. But you ARE empowering GroupThink by assuming group disparity is caused by group discrimination. You continue to not see this clearly. You do not solve the problems of GroupThink by applying more GroupThink.

At its core, systems are empowered by real people in real life, by how they act individually. People empower systems. Individuals. They act on their beliefs. This is where meaningful change has to occur to reduce systemic racism: to go after the beliefs that empower systemic racism. At the level of the individual. You. Me. That’s how ‘systems’ change.

This only comes about when each of us does not allow the ideology of Us and Them – the heart and soul of GroupThink – to start the process of rationalizing privilege in law, rationalizing different treatment of individuals based on group membership. This framing is diametrically opposed to achieving individual equality in action and is the root cause of maintaining group bias and discrimination.

Believing in GroupThink causes group discrimination in practice because it justifies it! That’s what you’re doing, albeit in reverse!! Your intentions don’t make your GroupThink support any less discriminatory!!!

We do our individual part by elevating the principles of individual equality to be our guide on how we act individually. Each of us is the Other, and each of us sees the identical rights and freedoms we wish for ourselves to be recognized and acted upon in and by the Other. That’s how Them becomes Us, You becomes Me in how we interact on an individual basis. It’s the Golden rule in action, the fundamental moral principles of reciprocity and fairness in action. Respect the individual and stop empowering GroupThink.

We can be different in many ways (and celebrate these important differences) but share the identical rights and freedoms and responsibilities that creates the Us. This is what equality in law means, equality in action means. We stop supporting systemic advantages based on group memberships and start exercising our individual and principled actions towards other individuals, not by group membership (the colour of their skin) but by individual actions (the quality of their character). This is how we put a stop to systemic advantages: first, by refusing to go along with GroupThink, and secondly stop pointing at groups and empowering belief that these differences define the individuals within the category. This is exactly how systemic advantages are empowered, explain how an apartheid system arises, how concentration camps and dehumanization is sustained. Group thinking is anathema to me seeing myself in you, a division that will never, ever allow the Other to become Us.

As a theory all of that looks very good and perfectly reasonable – but what happens when we examine cases like the necessity of the 14th amendment despite everything in it already being implied in the bill of rights? Or similarly the Déclaration des droits de l’homme, where it turned out homme was read literally and women weren’t included in the new rights.
I can see the system you propose working if it comes with safeguards with bite. And some serious anti-discrimination enforcement measures. We’re far from being in that position in France. Spain is even worse.

Always hold to the principle and let it become an honest value upon which your actions can be judged. Let it guide you. Teach children to hold to the principle and demonstrate its value in promoting reciprocity and fairness. That’s how integrity is born and sustained.

Look at how powerful this is in action where Saudi Arabia is scrambling to ‘punish’ Canada for standing on principle and criticizing the injustice of the barbarism that is the Saudi government and legal system, used to bludgeon real social justice warriors within its borders while losing respect each and every day in global community of nations. Support for the federal government taking this principled stand is ubiquitous across this massively diverse and multi-cultural country. Look at how populations throughout the West castigate their cowardly governments for not standing arm in arm on this principle as Canada does.

Only individual autonomy respected in law allows an honest response to these gross violations of fairness and reciprocity – the two pillars which are the fundamental principles of morality. Individual autonomy in law is not a group principle but an individual aspect each and every one of us desires and so morality belongs to the actions undertaken by each and every one of us regardless of any other group identity we may choose to hold. Such identity is secondary to our own unique character and we should put this understanding into action whenever we see real injustice carried out against real people in real life and not substitute this group identity hierarchy and think we can succeed at producing justice. We will produce injustice every time we forget upholding the principle foremost.

Okay, you lost me almost from the first word, and you’ve brought in all sorts of ‘examples’ that have no meaning for me.

I know nothing about ‘Caribbean Blacks’ vs any other kind of black because…I’m not American.

So, I’m different to you. My culture is different to yours. My reality is different to yours because the values of my culture are different to the values of your culture. In Australia, the values that you assign to ctrl Left are actually widely accepted and pretty mainstream. Not radical at all.

Yet you assume that whatever is ‘true’ in your world/country/culture is necessarily true for all countries/cultures. They’re not, and I could go into a great philosophical debate as to whether there is such a thing as objective ‘Truth’ at all. But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll say that diversity, in the form of a multicultural policy, is a relatively new thing in Australia – from the 1970’s or thereabouts. But it works and has allowed this country to go from core racist ‘White Australia’ to core multicultural, multi-race Australia in under 50 years.

The benefits of this ‘diversity’ have been enormous, enriching /our/ lives in everything from food and fashion to technology. And yes, our little country of 25 million actually punches above its weight in terms of innovation.

But even if you disagree with the cultural value of diversity, there is an evolutionary value that no one can ignore – monocultures go extinct because they are incapable of changing fast enough to keep up with a changing environment. By monocultures I mean the biological definition – a whole ecosystem supporting just one or two types of organisms.

Diverse populations, however, can change and evolve much faster. I can give you chapter and verse of how and why this happens. Just say the word.

So, in answer to why diversity matters, I’ll just say that it doesn’t matter…if you’re happy for your species/race to go extinct or become so irrelevant that it shrinks to a tiny population in a tiny corner of the ecosystem.

I want my country to remain relevant in the Asia Pacific area, so I want it to continue changing and becoming more diverse. Luckily, so do most other Australians.

Acflory, I said, ” I’ll bet we can find all kinds of agreement about how diversity enriches populations and that it’s a Good Thing.”

Translation: I agree diversity is a Good Thing.

But I also point out what diversity means. Differences. In multi-cultural diversity, we’re talking differences. What does that mean? Well, there are understandably going to be differences between two or more groups. After all, there HAS TO BE! That’s what diversity depends on: differences.

Oh look: the underlying assumption I criticize has to do with viewing cultural differences as disparity in outcomes (choose whatever outcome you want). The assumption is that these differences reveal disparity and that disparity is CAUSED by discrimination.

That’s the bullshit.

You cannot have the notion that diversity is of value while decrying disparity as the result of discrimination. These two do not go together. That’s the perversion of any and all data about differences – especially cultural differences – by those who foolishly utilize the post modern ideology of framing the world as oppressors and the oppressed, victimizers and victims. It’s turtles all the way down because these differences actually matter in producing differences in outcomes. Heresy! Not discrimination. Cultural differences because of values.

That’s the conversation that is simply intolerable to the SJWs of this world because we cannot possibly judge outcomes based on values without being automatically labeled as bigots, misogynists, and racists, you see. Heads I win, tails you lose. That’s the ctrl Left in action and it is deeply anti-liberal, deeply anti-enlightenment values. It’s actually fascist.

‘You cannot have the notion that diversity is of value while decrying disparity as the result of discrimination. ‘

I must be tired. No matter how many times I re-read that sentence, I still have no idea what it means.

Are you trying to say that the only way to have diversity is to have one group more powerful than the other? Or are you implying that difference itself creates disparity?

Either way, I don’t see the logic. Sorry.

I admit that the competition model is powerful, but in the animal world, competition is balanced by co-operation. And the same is true of human populations. We simply could not survive as a society if the two did not go hand in hand.

You and I are different people, different in many ways. I’m saying that’s good. It’s good that we’re different. You have strengths and weakness, abilities and foibles as do I. We share that fact that we are different. I believe we can celebrate these differences because they add value to the other, by allowing your strengths and abilities to compensate for my weaknesses and my foibles. And the reverse is true. I can enjoy your successes, your achievements, as you can mine. We are complete individuals with both differences and similarities. But without question we are both individuals. That’s our fundamental similarity. And this is what I’m saying the law should also recognize, that we share fundamental rights and freedoms and responsibilities, a core set of values that grants you the same opportunities that I wish for myself. And the opposite, that you grant me the same opportunities that you wish for yourself. Individual equality in law to grant each of us maximum latitude to develop as we choose. Legal equality.

So far, so good?

Now, along comes the ideology that our differences are not a result of our individual uniqueness (when spread across some imported group boundary to create a population for that group identity) but are a product of group membership, a membership that shapes our rights and freedoms and responsibilities and opportunities. The ideology tells us that we can know about ourselves by means of identifying which groups we are members of. Group identity. And the measurement of what opportunities each group has is based on comparing outcomes by group affiliation, by plotting where on a hierarchy our group currently resides… above this one but below that one. Furthermore, the assumption is that we can know the positioning of our group in a hierarchy of groups based on these different outcomes, that the outcomes define the pecking order of group power and privilege. This ideology advocates for group equality in law to grant every group maximum latitude to achieve sameness in outcome. Legal equity.

Note the two terms: equality in law is about shared individual rights whereas equity in law is about a result in the sameness of outcomes.

When I say, “You cannot have the notion that diversity is of value while decrying disparity as the result of discrimination”, I am pointing out the inherent friction in the group-based ideology that tries to have its cake and eat it too, that tries to argue that equality of diversity between people is of value when such diversity is then used as an indication of a lack of equity that must be corrected.

You seem to be making distinctions based on dubious legal definitions. The purpose of The Law is not justice, for either individuals or groups. The Law is simply there to make living in a group – i.e. a society – possible.

In so far as the Law is ‘supposed’ to apply to everyone, I guess you could call it egalitarian, but again, equality is not the purpose of The Law. It is simply a tool.

The reality of Western society is that we either demand equality, or we don’t.
If we do, we may get The Law changed to more closely resemble the model of equality we ask for.
If we don’t ask, the Law retains the form it has held since the last group ‘asked’ loudly enough to trigger change.

In the real world, the Western world, the group that has historically ‘asked’ loud enough to be heard, has always comprised wealthy, middle-aged white men.

Thus the Law that you reference was specifically designed to benefit this one group. It /still/ largely benefits this one group to the exclusion of all other groups.

As a member of a group that comprises 51% of the world’s population, but is not equal to your ‘group’, I don’t want to bump your group off. I don’t want my group to become the ‘alpha’ group. I simply want to be valued for the very things that make me different to you. If males are more competitive, females are more co-operative.

To survive long term, humans need those opposites to be in balance, as they are in nature.

Trying to defend some silly right wing bias using emotive, perjorative /language/ is counter survival. Trying to justify said bias using a mish-mash of quasi logical arguments is also counter survival.

Diversity will win out because it is the only mechanism that will guarantee the survival of the human race. As such, your arguments have simply served to crystalise, in my own mind, why I place such great value on diversity.
Thanks for that. 🙂

I think you’re coming from the perspective of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which as I understand it, works very efficiently. You’re also part of a culture which is essentially courteous.
I say that because we had a Canadian neighbour in Spain who constantly told us the way people interacted there was brutal. She pulled me aside once to tell me that I shouldn’t call someone who did odd jobs for us “Polish” – that instead I should call him by his name. But the identitarian dynamic is deeply ingrained in the culture. So your system can only really become possible in an international sense when something like the CHRA becomes part of the population’s mindset.

-grin- Apologies, clearly I didn’t make my point obvious enough. Your comments about diversity and the left wing are the /bias/. Equality under law is the fantasy.

I’m not interested in debating how things should be. I’m interested in how things are.

In so far as the US is part of the Western reality, I’m interested in the US. Mostly though, I’m interested in the parts of the Western reality for which I feel a greater affinity – i.e. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Continental Europe and the emerging power houses of Asia. It’s a big world out there, and it’s changing the lived reality for all of us.

I associate “black” with funny. Though I have known a couple of boring black guys.
A Mexican friend is always inviting me to visit Guanajuato to marry one of his sisters on the grounds that they love guys with blue eyes “y hay que mejorar la raza”.

That’s a fantastic example: “hay que mejorar la raza”. It’s in the depths of the Spanish psyche, especially from the colonial period when there were castes. Have you ever seen the Casta paintings?
The best position was a Spaniard born in continental Spain. The worst I think was African Black.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta

I still laugh about it: of course we need to get more European DNA in the family, come help! They say that is the source of the Mexican moustache – Indians can’t grow them so it proves Spanish heritage.

When I was in Brazil, I once had a stylist ask me if I was sure I didn’t have a little ‘raca’ in me because of my curly hair, thus making ‘race’ mean ‘African’. Whiteness was so normal to her that it didn’t even count as a difference. And sort of half-joking in that way that people have when they think they’re being outrageous, as if I would be shocked at the implication that I might not be a pure non-Mediterranean European.

This is the danger that ensues when one assumes that disparity of outcomes between groups of people is due to or proves group discrimination. Believing in this fallacy – for that is what it is, a thinking error – replaces the locus of moral responsibility from the individual who acts in a discriminatory way to the group to which he or she has been assigned. This is how a victimhood culture is created and it is the polar opposite to seeking reduced discrimination and/or legal equality for all individuals. (“In a victimhood culture it’s identity as a victim that gives you status. It’s not your own virtue at all, but someone else’s treatment of you, that makes you virtuous.”). This is the black heart of identity politics in action – morally irresponsible and intentionally discriminatory – and it is rotten to the core because it creates a separation between real people in real life and their value as the individuals they are. It rips away individual autonomy – the quality of one’s character – and replaces it with group identity.

From the authors of Understanding Victimhood Culture about this ideology being being supported and empowered on university campuses and played out in antifa activities in the US:

“So the moral hierarchy of victimhood culture places entire groups of people at the top or bottom based on the whole group’s victimhood status. And while it’s not always clear which groups qualify, Jonathan Haidt identifies seven groups that are currently treated as sacred: people of colour, women, LGBTs, Latinos, Native Americans, people with disabilities, and Muslims. Under this schema even many minority groups, such as Evangelical Christians, fail to qualify, and any discrimination against them is ignored or celebrated.

We have two problems with this. The first is a fundamental moral objection. We believe in the ideals of dignity culture — that all human beings have an inherent worth and should be treated accordingly — and we object to the new hierarchy of victimhood just as we would any racial and ethnic hierarchy. The second problem is the reactions it may produce. Whites, men, and others who do not have victimhood status are unlikely to accept a new morality and a new moral hierarchy in which they’re at the bottom. And they may end up embracing one in which they’re at the top. We find the recent prominence of alt-right white nationalists alarming, and we worry there will be more of it in reaction to the spread of victimhood culture. It’s a dangerous thing to undermine dignity culture and its ideals of equality.”

It’s a dangerous ideology and it guarantees more not less discrimination. Believing that this group identity culture will magically rectify real discrimination by discriminating is truly and profoundly idiotic.